During the next week, we rented an apartment (sharing with a woman and child) because we knew it would take at least three weeks before Dave could get the trailer home. A trailer moving company told us they would go get it for $800 plus tires @ $50 each. (Eventually, we used up five trailer tires.) We thought maybe we should have the trailer-moving company do it, but Dave changed his mind when he realized our main trouble had been that the weather was too warm (thawing and freezing makes more slippery roads than weather way below zero), so if the temperature dropped low enough in Canada, he figured he could get enough traction to pull the trailer with our old truck.
So Dave left ten days before Christmas with a friend he had met in Anchorage last summer. They took an axle and the necessary tires. They arrived back in Anchorage Tuesday before Christmas and said they had brought the trailer 70 miles closer but had broken another axle. So now the trailer was 450 miles away. They left again Saturday after Christmas with another axle, but returned after they found out it was not a broken axle after all but a broken rear end in the truck. And then his friend had to go to work, so Dave found a rear end and he and I left New Year's Eve (in a '67 VW we'd bought because that Chevy had cost us $100 in one month in gas, oil and antifreeze).
We got to the truck about half an hour after midnight, New Year's Day. It was about 20 degrees (for which we thanked the Lord; it had been as low as minus 40 since he had left it). He got out and fixed the truck and changed a tire on the trailer, and I tried to sleep in the back seat of the VW. No luck. I was so nervous I just lay there and shook.
We got started back at 6:30 a.m. We hadn't been driving five minutes till, distracted by Rachel, I ran off the road into a ditch full of snow, narrowly missing a telephone pole. Dave didn't see it happen, and left me behind. Both pulling wheels were stuck fast, and my lights were shining right on some other-than-human tracks in the snow.
I knew Dave would eventually miss me and come back, but how long? I took the opportunity to change and nurse Rachel and get her happily settled again, and then I waited. Man! of all the thoughts that can come into your head out in the wilderness alone and everything covered with snow, and those questionable tracks staring up at you. Eventually an on-coming semi stopped and pulled me out, and before he had me out, Dave was back to get me, having unhitched the trailer and returned in the truck. When we reached the trailer again, it had fallen off the jack and it took an hour to get it hooked up again. An HOUR of precious daylight. Because of my stupidity. You better believe I watched the road after that and let Rachel cry. And for the most part I drove in front.
We drove all day and slept in a log cabin Thursday night. Then we drove all day Friday and all night Friday night, and arrived in Anchorage at 3:45 Saturday morning. The road was fair all the way, but there were a few places where it was rather like greased glass. But we only spun out on two hills, one in Canada and one about 100 miles from Anchorage. The first hill we made because there was a handy sand box and I sanded the road while Dave backed the trailer about a half mile and made a hard run at it. He almost made it up and then I raked the sand he'd already run over in front of the spinning wheels (I was wildly running from one side of the truck to the other) and inch by icy inch we went to the top. I had never felt so accomplished in my life when we reached the summit...
The second hill we made with the chains, because it was snow (which chains will bite better than ice). On that one I had to go over the top and stop the traffic because when Dave had tried to back down, he'd jack-knifed and slid till he was on the wrong side of the road. And believe me, when a big truck drops over a hill that slick and something is in the way, it's just too bad, because they flat can't stop.
Anyway, we're finally here, and nearly set up. It's been consistently 10 to 30 below zero since we've had the trailer here. Right now we have no water or sewage; all pipes are frozen and busted, and there is 1 to 1-1/2 inches of ice on the inside of every window in the house, but it's warm inside, about 70 degrees. I keep the curtains and blankets over the windows and Rachel has slept with us several nights. When we get the water running and bisquine on the windows it will be better, I think. It's very hard to describe how exquisitely beautiful it is here. I've seen pictures which I thought were just exaggerations, but it really looks like that--the trees completely white, each separate little twig fluffy with ice particles. We really like the town and the people, but the cost is so high. Our $65 unemployment will barely feed us, and won't begin to pay the rent and utilities. Our neighbor has an 8x27 trailer which costs them $40 a month to heat. Our heater runs all the time...
Rachel is growing so much and so sweet. Has four teeth, goes everywhere in her walker and sits in hi-chair in front of mirror for an hour talking to the baby in the mirror. Has a twig of hair over ears on both sides, and getting more and more hair, which all sticks straight up, of course. Pretty soon I'll be calling her the "girl with the straight-up hair"; remember Mary Ross Taylor, the "girl with the straight down hair"? [Mary was a childhood classmate in Arkansas.]
We like it here, so far, but the cost is so high it worries us. If Dave doesn't get us finished set up and get a job within a month, we'll probably have to come home.
Pray for us and write the news.
Love,
Jean, Dave, Rachel
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